“I love company,” the stranger decided. “Sit down, sit down.”
Reiner couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Rather than fleeing danger, he seemed perversely eager to court it these days, even revel in it, testing himself in the crucible of risk. He was amazed at how he’d changed since coming to France. Hardly recognized himself anymore. A sure sign that he never should have returned.
Mazarelle picked up the leather jacket, which had a strong, musty
smell that was not unfamiliar to him. “This yours?” he asked, sitting down.
Reiner grabbed his jacket and tossed it over the back of his chair. “Did that guy over there call you inspector? You a flic?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Inspector
Mazarelle
?”
“How did you know?”
“I saw your face in the newspaper. You take a nice picture.”
“Good sleuthing. You should be in my business. What’s your name?”
Reiner smiled. The flic had absolutely no idea who he was. He was really enjoying himself. The situation was priceless—sitting side by side with the man assigned to track him down. He had this wild urge to tempt fate a bit more. Why stop when you’re having fun? Live a little. “You’re the guy who captured the L’Ermitage murderer, aren’t you?” Raising his glass with a nice flourish, he said, “
Chapeau,
Inspector.”
“Thanks, but nobody’s caught him yet.”
Reiner turned from the game and stared at the police officer. His voice when it came had lost its twinkle. “What’s that supposed to mean? I read in the paper that you’d caught him.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Reiner shrugged. “These days you can’t trust anybody.”
“You’re right about that.” Why didn’t he want to give him his name? Mazarelle had the creepy feeling that this guy was laughing at him. He wondered if Ali’s death had him looking over his shoulder now, hearing footsteps. Mickey V’s dog, tail wagging, trotted over to Mazarelle. The inspector grabbed him and gave Javert his usual affectionate two-fisted pat that was more like a firm Swedish massage.
“No wonder he likes you,” said Reiner. “He’s a flic too. How come you became a cop?”
Mazarelle considered his question and chuckled. “Not trusting people, for one thing. Another, I suppose, is my father was a fire chief. I figured I’d try something different. What about
your
father?”
“A nonentity.” Reiner dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. He had little desire to pursue it.
The inspector refused to let him off the hook. “I’m interested,” he insisted. “What did he do?”
“Not much. He was injured in the army. Couldn’t find a job when he came home, so mostly he just hung around. A dull life neatly rounded off by a boring death. Except for his stay in the military, the only risk he ever took was getting up in the morning.”
Mickey V came over, put down the steaming special, and, like magic, produced a jar of mustard from under his apron. “Thérèse says this is yours.”
Mazarelle sniffed. “Smells good.”
“Are you coming in for dinner this evening?” the owner asked. “The chef’s special tonight is duck confit, one of your favorites.”
“I’ll be in. But late.”
“I’ll save you some.” He picked up their empty glasses and asked the inspector, “Another round of drinks?”
It was useless to try to be heard above the noise. Noting that his tablemate was absorbed in the action on the screen, Mazarelle nodded—another round for both of them. The café had become a battlefield of booing, cheering, stomping feet. Only a few minutes before the half and the English had just been awarded a free kick. Number 7 would take it. As he brushed his long, blond hair out of his eyes, the boos grew louder, the cheering more desperate. The Valon fans appeared frozen in a World War II time warp—split between rabid Pétainist Vichyites and Free French Gaullists. Mazarelle had to laugh at the old guy at the next table pumping his cane like a baton as he led those cheering the Brits’ kicker.
Reiner scowled at the Anglophiles and the decrepit old bone bag making a fool of himself.
The inspector said, “Number seven. That’s Beckham, isn’t it?”
“That’s him. Too pretty for my taste.”
Mazarelle announced having read somewhere that he was one of the highest-paid players in Europe.
“One hundred and forty thousand a week.” The stranger knew everything about him, had apparently read all the football fanzines. “And that doesn’t include what he gets from Adidas and Pepsi for endorsements. Do you realize that’s more than Arnold Schwarzenegger makes?”
“I guess he’s worth it.”
Reiner stared at him as if he were certifiable. “You’re joking.”
“We’ll see,” the inspector said, as Beckham stepped up and blasted the ball. Had it gone straight, instead of way wide of the Germans’ right goalpost, it would have tied the score. The inspector winced. An admirer of the French star Zinedine Zidane, he philosophically observed, “He’s no Zizou.”
Reiner needed another drink. The owner seemed to have forgotten all about them. He tried to get Thérèse’s attention for a refill, but she was busy. It was the half now.
“Not a bad first half,” the inspector said.
“At least the first six minutes.” The stranger appeared annoyed by the thirty-nine that followed, unable to fathom why Bayern wasn’t way ahead by now. He waved in the direction of Thérèse, who was taking other orders. “What are you drinking, cognac? This round is on me.”
Mazarelle was on his feet. “My treat,” he called on his way to the bar. “The next is yours.”
Reiner saw no reason to argue about it. He’d been watching the excited old fool at the adjoining table, who throughout the half had been scurrying back and forth to the crapper. This time as he tried to get up he lost his cane. Reiner handed it back to him.
The old man seemed surprised. “It’s not easy getting old,” he said, as he stood up.
There was a momentary look of contempt on Reiner’s face. “What’s the big trick? All you have to do is hang around long enough.”
The old man enjoyed the joke. He had a shrill, grating laugh, more like a wheeze than a laugh. Reiner hated it, and Reiner wasn’t joking. He flicked his foot and the old man lost his cane. He went sprawling, banging his head hard on the cement floor. His friends rushed to his aid and, lifting his wafer-thin, crumpled body, hurried him out the door. Reiner watched them go. No one had seemed to notice his footwork.
When the inspector returned, the stranger was watching the young couple on TV driving through Barcelona, their child strapped safely in his seat in the back. All three of them smiling from ear to ear. A car commercial.
“Still here?” the inspector asked, laughing as he put down their drinks. “I thought you might have left.”
The stranger was not amused. “Of course I’m still here. The only way you’ll get me out of here before this game is over is to arrest me and drag me away.”
Mazarelle grinned. “Speaking of which, what happened to the old boy they just carried out?”
Reiner shrugged. “He must have fallen. At his age and that thin it doesn’t take much. The slightest breeze.”
“What’s that up there? A new Mercedes?” The inspector sipped his cognac.
“The new S class model.”
The inspector was impressed. “A good-looking car.” The black sedan gleamed like something in a jeweler’s window.
“In a way almost too good,” Reiner said softly, thinking that if things had worked out differently with Phillips’s rented Mercedes, he would no longer be in France. No, no, he told himself, that way lies madness.
Puzzled, the inspector asked, “What do you mean ‘too good’?”
“All the standard safety devices they put in nowadays. Air bag, supplemental restraint systems, seat belt pretensioners, brake assist, traction control, electronic stability control.”
“What the hell’s wrong with that?”
On the spur of the moment the only thing Reiner could think of was “Too expensive.”
Mazarelle noticed the players drifting back from their locker rooms for the second half and inquired how Bayern had scored their goal. The stranger brightened and described Basler’s remarkable free kick but, feeling that he’d failed to do it justice, became annoyed with himself. He snatched up the inspector’s small paper napkin and asked for a pencil.
“Will this do?” Mazarelle gave him his pen.
Reiner swiftly sketched in the goal, the defensive wall of players, the position of the two stick figures he labeled Basler and Schmeichel. Then with a neat dotted line he tracked the triumphal curving path of the ball past the goalie into the net.
“You see?” He pushed his drawing across the table.
“Impressive.”
“Exactly.” The stranger leaned back, arms folded in satisfaction, and balanced himself precariously on the spindly rear legs of his wooden chair.
Mazarelle took out his pipe. He filled it with Philosophe and methodically tamped down the tobacco. “What did you say your name was? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in Taziac.” Though said in passing while he busied himself hunting in his pockets for matches, it was not exactly random chitchat at this point.
“Funny, I was thinking the same about you.” Reiner felt that in knowing his man the advantage was all his. That was what made the little cat and mouse game he was playing with the inspector so extraordinary.
“Have you been in here before?” Reiner asked.
“Oh, a few times,” the inspector said casually. “Do you live around here?”
“I’m on vacation.”
“Taziac is a good place for a vacation. Especially if you like peace and quiet. That is”—the inspector lit up and sent a stream of gray smoke across the table—“until recently.” The two men exchanged wary glances.
Reiner, seeing the players take the field, announced, “Here we go,” and brought his chair legs down with a crash. The second half was about to begin.
Bayern got off to a quick start. The Germans seemed the fresher of the two teams and more determined than ever to break away from their English defenders. Again and again they challenged United’s goalie, but each time he scooped the ball up and put it back into play. Reiner groaned. He was becoming more and more frustrated. Throwing his head back, exasperated, his eyes searched the café’s pressed tin ceiling for divine intervention. The football gods had turned a deaf ear to Bayern’s dejected fans. With time running out, perhaps they wouldn’t need another score to win.
There was almost no regulation time left on the clock when Manchester’s Teddy Sheringham took what had to be his team’s last chance. It was a corner kick—a high, driving one and curving at an impossible angle. Reiner watched the normally dependable Kahn
move toward the approaching ball. Leaping across the mouth of the goal, the fully extended German goalie reached for it but, eluding his outstretched fingertips, the ball somehow slipped into the net. Sheringham threw up his arms, exultant. Shouting and pounding him on the back, his English teammates celebrated the equalizer and the red-and-white-clad United fans in Barcelona danced deliriously in the stands.
Reiner was disgusted. How lucky could they get? Bayern had the match under control for nearly ninety minutes and with only seconds left let it get away from them. He’d never seen such sloppiness, such utter stupidity in his life. Now they’d have to go into overtime. Though he tried not to look back at Bayern’s missed opportunities, the furious Reiner felt like a steaming volcano inside. He pounded his fist on the tabletop. Startled, the inspector jumped back, bumping into the table, knocking over his chair—their wineglasses and his empty plate fell to the floor. People at nearby tables turned to see what had happened. Thérèse hurried over with a broom and swept up the broken glass.
The stranger’s outburst had surprised the inspector. Though his mind knew better, his body had been trained to react instantly in such situations, as if the man’s anger had been directed at him. Taking out a handkerchief, Mazarelle wiped off the wet sleeve of his jacket. “Sorry,” Reiner said, as coolly as if nothing had happened, but he knew by the look on the inspector’s face that he’d made a mistake.
In that fleeting moment Mazarelle had a thought. It was nothing more than a hunch about this excitable stranger with the musty leather jacket that he’d been sitting next to for more than an hour now, this unknown visitor who refused to tell him his name. Whoever he was, this guy might well turn out to be trouble. He definitely wanted to know more about him. When the game was over he’d tail him, find out where in Taziac he was staying. Until then, he intended to keep as calm as he could, enjoy the end of the game, and not let this weirdo out of his sight.
Three minutes was all that was left. Injury time. The already keyed-up crowd in the café grew increasingly restless watching the game as the seconds ticked by. With only a few ticks left on the clock and the score still tied 1–1, United was awarded another corner kick.
It was up to Beckham now. Even Reiner, who thought him overrated, considered the Englishman a threat. His fans believed that at his best, in a tight game such as this one, he could make all the difference. They watched Beckham, forgetting their drinks, as the side of his foot met the face of the ball and sent it gracefully arcing to Sheringham, who flicked it to Solskjaer—dubbed by his teammates the “baby-faced assassin”—who slammed it home. The perfect trigonometry of a championship.
On TV the overwrought announcer screamed “GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!” Bayern Münich players were all down on the turf rolling around in agony. They couldn’t believe what had just happened. The café erupted. Manchester United fans were on their feet, cheering, dancing, leaping up and down. Ole Solskjaer’s splendid right-footed blow had been a stab in the heart of the Bayern rooters. They were disconsolate. Asked his reaction, one of the German players said, “I don’t have words to describe such a sickening moment.”
Mazarelle, who’d been enjoying the interviews with the players, turned to see how his tablemate was taking what had happened, but he was gone. Vanished. The inspector rushed to the front door. Shoving people aside like bowling pins, he plowed through the noisy crowd. Almost lost among the many cars parked in front of the café was a black Yamaha with a gleaming chrome exhaust. A second before the motorcycle’s engine roared into life, he spotted the stranger’s leather jacket as he sped off down the narrow rue Blanche.